General BOTHA: I don't think that we should be so technical, especially not in your case, because our being together here is with the object of causing hostilities which involve great expenditure of money every month, to cease, and our meeting can have the result of speedily putting an end to these costs. And therefore, by accepting our proposal and paying the receipts, you will greatly reduce your expenses. It will be much cheaper to terminate the war by co-operation than to let the negotiations be broken off; and therefore I think that we must accede to points which stand in the way. Chief Commandant DE WET: I can give His Excellency Lord Milner the assurance that the idea always lived with the people that, even if everything was lost, they would still, after the war, receive the money in payment of the receipts. And therefore if this is not conceded I cannot conceive what the result will be. I fear that result, and hope that you will try to obviate it. General BOTHA: It cannot be a particularly large amount; but we do not know how much it is. Chief Commandant DE WET: You can well imagine that our expenditure was as a drop in a bucket compared with yours. And if I am not mistaken, the Orange Free State had three-quarters of a million pounds when we commenced the war; and the expenditure by means of receipts began after that amount was exhausted. Your Excellencies must therefore admit that these receipts impose upon us the same obligation towards creditors as any other debt would have done. General BOTHA: You have already many of our notes in your possession. In one place, for instance, 50,000 were hidden and found by you.